http://www.bogost.com/ Official website of Ian Bogost (a videogame theorist, critic, and designer), including books, games, writing, teaching, speaking, and blog en Copyright 2009 Fri, 01 Jan 2100 00:00:00 -0500 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Adds new sound settings, high score reset -- Apple has just approved, finally, my latest update to the iPhone version of Guru Meditation (to 1.2). Here are the list of updates as they appear on the iTunes App Store: Added a Sound Mode setting. Options are Requires Quiet, which is the standard mode, Microphone Disabled, which allows the game to be played in louder environments like public transit... http://www.bogost.com/blog/new_guru_meditation_update_ava.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/new_guru_meditation_update_ava.shtml blog Atari games iPhone Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:03:37 -0500 With apologies to my journalist friends -- Dear Expert, I am a journalist writing for Publication, a newspaper/ magazine/ website serving a Major Market or Niche Audience. I am working on a story about Your Area of Expertise, although I'll admit don't know much about it. I wonder: instead of doing research myself on the story I am required to write, would you be willing to talk... http://www.bogost.com/blog/letter_of_inquiry_template.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/letter_of_inquiry_template.shtml blog cynicism press writing Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:09:55 -0500 On Brenda Brathwaite's Train and gestural interfaces. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra -- Games have flaunted gestural interfaces for years now. The Nintendo Wii is the most familiar example, but such interfaces can be traced back decades: Sony's EyeToy; Bandai's Power Pad; Mattel's Power Glove; Amiga's Joyboard; the rideable cars and motorbikes of '80s - '90s arcades; indeed, even Nintendo's own progenitors of the Wii Remote, like Kirby Tilt 'n Tumble for Game... http://www.bogost.com/writing/gestures_as_meaning.shtml http://www.bogost.com/writing/gestures_as_meaning.shtml writing Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:44:17 -0500 -- First, behold the lovely picture my daughter (age 7) gave me today. It's nice to see that existential angst runs in the family. Second, behold how the Mac OS X built-in thesaurus handles "existentialism." Apt, isn't it?... http://www.bogost.com/blog/two_notes_on_existential_angst.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/two_notes_on_existential_angst.shtml blog philosophy Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:06:04 -0500 Apple Rejects Commodore 64 iPhone App -- iPhone developer Manomio has created a slick, feature-packed Commodore 64 emulator for iPhone. The emulator and the five games it ships with are legally licensed. After a year of development, they submitted the program to Apple, who rejected it, citing the following SDK agreement clause: We've reviewed C64 1.0 and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone... http://www.bogost.com/blog/cant_continue_error.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/cant_continue_error.shtml blog Apple Commodore 64 emulation iPhone Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:15:16 -0500 The joy of the bad analogy -- Today I read Social Media Trader's article How to commit social media suicide. It included the following tidbit in a section about avoid making the same mistakes again and again when targeting social media for web traffic. When I got my girlfriend pregnant, her dad clearly saw I was distraught and said “Look, many men have been here before, you’ll... http://www.bogost.com/blog/blogging_stops_unplanned_pregn.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/blogging_stops_unplanned_pregn.shtml blog Web 2.0 website Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:15:28 -0500 The Unseen Power of Google's Malware Detection -- I often worry about the consequences of what Siva Vaidhyanathan calls Googlization, the way Google is changing and disrupting the creation and dissemination of ideas. I've resisted using Google services like Gmail and Google Docs, despite their popularity and, in some cases, their convenience. I've mostly been disinterested in allowing Google to mine and profit from my information, but this... http://www.bogost.com/blog/cascading_failure.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/cascading_failure.shtml blog Google politics Twitter website Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:34:28 -0500 I'm sure you've been biting your nails in anticipation -- A week ago or so, I mentioned a trivia contest I was running on the Touch Arcade forums, with correct answers winning Guru Meditation redemption codes or a signed copy of Racing the Beam. I've given away all the codes and the book, so now it's time to share the correct answers. (1) The Fairchild Channel F, an interchangeable cartridge... http://www.bogost.com/blog/guru_meditation_trivia_contest_1.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/guru_meditation_trivia_contest_1.shtml blog atari books geekery iphone Thu, 04 Jun 2009 11:22:54 -0500 A universal plot summary, summer 2009 edition -- It's time to test my theory of computer animated film plots against the latest examples of that form, DreamWorks' Monsters vs. Aliens and Pixar's Up. In case you are too lazy to click through, here's the theory again in its entirety: After the worst of a long series of well-meaning but destructive deeds, an anthropomorphized creature protagonist is shunned by... http://www.bogost.com/blog/every_computer_animated_film_e_1.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/every_computer_animated_film_e_1.shtml blog cynicism film Tue, 02 Jun 2009 18:12:28 -0500 -- For those attending E3, my game Guru Meditation will be shown at the IndieCade exhibit, which can be found in South Hall, booth #652. Unfortunately I won't be there to see reactions to it. If you do, please let me know about them!... http://www.bogost.com/blog/guru_meditation_at_e3.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/guru_meditation_at_e3.shtml blog Atari games iphone Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:25:32 -0500 In Digital Culture & Education -- Thomas Apperley has written a new review of Racing the Beam in the new open-access peer-reviewed journal Digital Culture & Education. Nick and I are delighted to see a review of our book in the inaugural issue. I was likely delighted to see Apperley trace the steps toward the platform studies project in my earlier writings: The gestures towards a... http://www.bogost.com/blog/new_review_of_racing_the_beam.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/new_review_of_racing_the_beam.shtml blog books writing Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:52:59 -0500 On cognitive dissonance and the iPhone. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra. -- Last month I took an early Sunday morning flight from Atlanta to Orlando. I wandered into a newsstand and picked up the May 2009 issue of Popular Science, which featured a cover story about space planes that intrigued me. The story turned out to be less interesting than the cover suggested, but I rather enjoyed another article about the discomfort... http://www.bogost.com/writing/i_want_my_99_back.shtml http://www.bogost.com/writing/i_want_my_99_back.shtml writing Thu, 28 May 2009 10:24:40 -0500 Win copies of Guru Meditation, Racing the Beam -- The nice folks over at Touch Arcade invited me to drop in and discuss my game Guru Meditation on their forum. To spur conversation, I decided to run a little trivia contest. I figured I'd point the rest of you to it. Here's how it works: the first person to correctly answer any single question gets an iTunes redemption code... http://www.bogost.com/blog/guru_meditation_trivia_contest.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/guru_meditation_trivia_contest.shtml blog atari books iphone Sun, 24 May 2009 11:18:10 -0500 The NSF Prefers Strings, Crayons -- After an unintentional hiatus, last week I resumed following Georgia Tech CS colleague Mark Guzdial's Amazon blog. His latest salvo is a thought-provoking piece called Using computing to teach computing (Hint: Don't use the "P" word). The post centers around a question Mark posed to Jeannette Wing, Director of the Computing & Information Science & Engineering branch of the NSF... http://www.bogost.com/blog/teaching_computing_with_comput.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/teaching_computing_with_comput.shtml blog programming teaching Tue, 19 May 2009 00:09:11 -0500 Om for Atari and iPhone -- After two years of off and on development, I've just released my relaxation game Guru Meditation, simultaneously for Atari VCS and iPhone. The game is a re-imagining of and homage to old Amiga lore, an exploration of what a game that legitimately deals with inactivity would feel like, and (through the iPhone version), an exploration of attention and compromise in... http://www.bogost.com/blog/guru_meditation_released.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/guru_meditation_released.shtml blog Atari games geekery iPhone Mon, 18 May 2009 00:54:27 -0500 Notes on Nick Montfort -- Two quick notes relating to friend and Racing the Beam coauthor Nick Montfort. First, he has a new blog, Post Position, which already boasts a number of insightful posts on games, IF, constraint, and other topics that will probably interest you if you are reading my site. Second, as Nick noted in passing in one of his post positional posts,... http://www.bogost.com/blog/positions_post_and_permanent.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/positions_post_and_permanent.shtml blog teaching website Wed, 13 May 2009 08:12:34 -0500 The Insane Japanese Response to Swine Flu -- A week ago, I wrote about the irrationality surrounding so-called swine flu, in the context of Killer Flu, a videogame Persuasive Games created about seasonal and pandemic flu. This week, I received an unexpected email from the organizers of the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference, which is scheduled to take place in Tokyo next week. Apparently the Japanese... http://www.bogost.com/blog/quarantine_surgical_masks_and.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/quarantine_surgical_masks_and.shtml blog cynicism travel Tue, 12 May 2009 11:15:04 -0500 Apple's Idea of Mother's Day -- Thanks to a direct email advertisement, I had the opportunity this week to behold Apple's idea of what mothers like. You can see it below: Just in case you can't see it clearly, Apple manages to pull out every mom stereotype they could connect to their products. Moms like pink, they like casual games, and they like classic female recording... http://www.bogost.com/blog/pink_puzzles_and_piano_bars.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/pink_puzzles_and_piano_bars.shtml blog Apple games grievances iPhone Wed, 06 May 2009 22:58:17 -0500 -- This week has witnessed much talk about Amazon's possible release of a new, larger Kindle eReader designed for newspapers and textbooks, culminating in an article in the New York Times that claims confirmation of such an impending announcement. That's on top of talk from magazine publisher Hearst's announcement that it intends to produce its own reader, not to mention the... http://www.bogost.com/blog/top_ten_reasons_i_returned_my.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/top_ten_reasons_i_returned_my.shtml blog Amazon.com Apple books geekery Mon, 04 May 2009 01:27:17 -0500 Henry Jenkins interviews us -- Henry Jenkins recently interviewed Nick Montfort and me about Racing the Beam and the Platform Studies series. The two part interview is online now at Henry's site: A New "Platform" for Games Research?: An Interview with Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort (Part One) A New "Platform" for Games Research?: An Interview with Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort (Part Two) I... http://www.bogost.com/blog/a_new_platform_for_games_resea.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/a_new_platform_for_games_resea.shtml blog Atari books Sat, 02 May 2009 21:28:15 -0500 CRT Emulation for the Atari VCS -- This spring, I had the pleasure of advising a Georgia Tech Computer Science capstone group. The capstone is a requirement for the degree that is meant to draw on all aspects of the students' experience in the program. Each project requires an advisor and a customer. In my case, I played both roles. The project I came up with was... http://www.bogost.com/blog/texture_bleed_afterimage.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/texture_bleed_afterimage.shtml blog Atari education games software television Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:45:08 -0500 Production Hacks in Racing the Beam -- I like that someone noticed this: (I also enjoyed that the book [Racing the Beam] itself is a nice recursive hack. Its (fairly cheap) printing process didn't allow reproducing the detailed color photos of the games needed for reference. So they printed them on the inside of the dust jacket instead.) Indeed, it was essential that color images of the... http://www.bogost.com/blog/a_recursive_hack.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/a_recursive_hack.shtml blog Atari books writing Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:00:52 -0500 -- I've finally updated my Xcode Tools for Atari VCS Development, such that syntax coloring works in Xcode 3.1. Apple keeps changing the specifications for it, so every version I have to figure out how it works again and retool. This is just a pointer post for those of you who keep track of such things.... http://www.bogost.com/blog/atari_vcs_programming_in_xcode_1.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/atari_vcs_programming_in_xcode_1.shtml blog Apple Atari programming software Xcode Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:39:11 -0500 Jesper, the Videogame Chair -- There I was, browsing through the Ikea catalog, when I came upon this remarkable chair. On first blush it looks like those ill-fated ergonomic chairs of the 1980s, but it's really just a bench at two heights. The user is meant to straddle the lower height and use the upper to rest his arms while holding a videogame controller, avoiding... http://www.bogost.com/blog/i_cant_hold_my_arms_up.shtml http://www.bogost.com/blog/i_cant_hold_my_arms_up.shtml blog games Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:01:27 -0500 On "Bushnell's Law" and why it is misunderstood. From my "Persuasive Games" column at Gamasutra -- Here's a game design aphorism you've surely heard before: a game, so it goes, ought to be "easy to learn and hard to master." This axiom is so frequently repeated because it purports to hold the key to a powerful outcome: an addicting game, one people want to play over and over again once they've started, and in which starting... http://www.bogost.com/writing/familiarity_habituation_catchi.shtml http://www.bogost.com/writing/familiarity_habituation_catchi.shtml writing Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:19:16 -0500